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During the 12th Internal Aikido Federation Congress, attendees got the opportunity to attend a series of events and conferences. On of those was a special lecture given by Hiroshi Tada Shihan, 9th Dan at the Takasaki City Hall. Please enjoy this recording of a lecture by one of the last direct students of O Sensei.

The 55th edition of the All Japan Aikido Demonstrations took place at the Nippon Budokan last Saturday. Please enjoy this playlist featuring videos of the most exciting Aikido event of the year! We will keep adding more videos as we edit them.

The SportAccord International Federations Forum was held in Lausanne, Switzerland, during the 9th – 11th of November 2016. International Aikido Federation was represented by Kei Izawa, IAF Chairman, and Wilko Vriesman, IAF General Secretary. The theme of the Forum this year was "The Power of Sport to Drive World Health". The topic has a great relevance to Aikido. The health benefits of this martial art are well known. This theme has quite a potential for Aikido and IAF will explore it more as how to make it part of its goals and objectives.

We would like draw attention to the IAF forum feature – The Journey of Women in Aikido. As we are all well aware that despite comprising 50% of the general population, women in Aikido in the world, comprise at best 30% -of our student population. The forum seeks to discuss ways we can all ensure that Aikido is open, equal, positive and welcoming to both sexes.

We are pleased to be able to share with you the playlist of the videos shot during the 12th International Aikido Congress featuring outstanding demonstrations that were offered by some of the world's top Aikido practicioners.

The International Aikido Federation is proud to announce the second lecture by Tada Sensei. He is well known for his study of the historical and philosophical aspects of Aikido. After an interesting lecture at the congress in 2012 the IAF decided to ask Tada Sensei to give another lecture during this Congress. The lecture is open to all participants of the IAF congress and seminar. Translation in English will be provided. Space is limited, so please be on time to avoid disappointment. (A. Dragt)

12th IAF Congress - Click for larger viewThis is to announce that the IAF Congress that is normally held every four years will take place from September 26th till October 3rd, 2016 in Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. During the Congress we will also plan a week long Aikido seminar with Hombu Shihans, some key overseas Shihans and a class with Ueshiba Moriteru Doshu. Please pencil in the dates in your calendar and we hope to see you in Takasaki in the new arena built by the city. More details about the accommodation and logistics will become available as the time approaches. Please re-post in your social media and websites about this important event.

We are pleased to have a number of senior Aikido Women helming and leading important initiatives at IAF. Here, we speak to three women, who chair the IAF’s working groups:Lydia Zijdel - Chairperson of the IAF Disability Working Group, Satomi Ishikawa - Co-Chairperson of the IAF Gender Balance Working Group, and Lijnie Reijers - Chairperson of the IAF Youth Working Group, to get their perspectives on their experience as women aikidokas, the path for women in Aikido and their hopes for the future.

Plovdiv, European Capital of Culture in 2019, will celebrate Aikido with the International Seminar & Embukai conducted by Tsuruzo Miyamoto Shihan, in April. This project aims to develop and promote the Japanese culture and values and it has been set to be the Ambassador of Aikido for Plovdiv 2019.

IAF continues the series of International Aikido Youth Seminars. Bulgaria is the next country to host and organize the third event dedicated to children and teenagers that love to practice Aikido. The seminar will be conducted by Hino Terumasa 5th Dan Hombu Dojo Shidoin, during the 19th and the 21st of July 2019, in Varna, Bulgaria.

The IAF Gender Balance Working Group invited Miyuki Kumazawa Sensei in Europe to celebrate the International Women’s Day. Miyuki Kumazawa 6th Dan Sensei is part of Aikikai Japan and she will conduct seminars in Netherland and Belgium under IAF aegis.

The website of a new Aikido project has just been launched: www.skillai.eu . The project is called SKILLAI and it is funded by the EU Erasmus+. The aim of the project is to introduce Aikido as a skill development tool for young people. The first three countries within this project are Slovenia, Hungary and Netherland.

The IWGA Athlete of the Year event went through the first round and Renato Filippin Shihan, who I nominated, came to number 11 among the other entries, so our participation this year will not go any further. We would like to congratulate those other athletes from other sports, who have moved to the following stage and I personally would like to thank all those Aikidokas and friends who voted for Renato Filippin Shihan who received a significant volume of support from many people!

The main hall at Hombu Dojo was entirely full on the occasion of the Kagami-Biraki ceremony of 2019. There were people who came from far away countries to attend this event. 742 Aikidoka were promoted to a new Yudansha Aikido Aikikai rank. Doshu Moriteru Ueshiba conducted the ceremony and also held an Embukai.

For the first time, two wheelchair using Aikido teachers taught together in Aikido clinics in Europe. Lydia Zijdel, the Chairperson of the Disability Working Group of the IAF, from Netherland, and Molly Hale, member of the same working group, from USA, organized a tour where they taught together in Netherland. This event was organized in cooperation with Aikikai Netherland, under the aegis of IAF.

“Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow.”Morihei Ueshiba

International World Games Association will launch the session for designation of the Athlete of the Year 2018 on the 1st of January 2019. The nominated person to represent Aikido is Renato Filippin Shihan 7 Dan.

Uruguay gathered a lot of active people yesterday, in Canelones, for the Nanairo Ekiden event. "It was a pleasant surprise to see that even though there were a lot of loud expressing spectators, during the Aikido demonstration everybody turned quiet and paid attention to what was happening on the tatami." said Lilamani de Soysa, from the University of Tsukuba, present at the event.

Slovenia hosted a very punctilious and fruitful international aikido seminar. It was conducted by three women who love aikido very much and show this through their dedication on the tatami and beyond: Nadia Korichi, 4th Dan, Satomi Ishikawa, 4th Dan, and Staša Pisek, 3rd Dan. The seminar was in Ljubljana, during the 11th – 13th of May. Boštjan Kenda was one of the participants at this seminar and was very kind to share the impressions upon the International Aikido Female Instructors Seminar.

11 female instructors from 7 countries conducted the trainings of the annual Female Instructor Seminar in Buenos Aires. This was the 3rd edition of the event that is meant not only to promote female instructors, but also to unite different Aikikai federations in whole Argentina.

The Swedish anniversary Aikido event - Gothenburg International Shochugeiko & 50 years of Aikido - has just started today. It is a time of joy celebrated in two intensive weeks of Takemusu Aikido, during July 2–7 and July 9–13. Gothenburg Aikido Club organizes every summer a session of trainings at the warmest time of the year, but now there is an extra celebration due to the fact that Ulf Evenås Shihan, who has been the supervisor of Gothenburg Aikido Club, marks his 50th year in Aikido.

How to make practical progress to achieve gender balance and equity in Aikido? At the Second Aikido and Gender Day 2018, the participant aikidoka dealt with this question from different angles. In various ways, from Aikido training to workshops and interactive dialogues, they identified a rich collection of items which may serve as 'building blocks' for an agenda for further work.

We will soon be celebrating the 8th of March, the International Women's Day. Since its foundation in 2016 in Takasaki, the IAF Gender Balance Working Group has been actively supporting the gender balance in the world of Aikido. Although Aikido is for everyone, the gender balance is still one side up, especially in the field of leadership - there are far less high-ranking female instructors and board members than the male equivalent.

The traditional Kagami-Biraki ceremony was held at Hombu Dojo, the Aikido World Headquarters, in Tokyo/Japan, on the 14th of January 2018. 941 people were awarded Dan promotions. Doshu Moriteru Ueshiba offered an embukai on this occasion.

The first IAF’s Youth International Seminar took place in Netherlands at mid November. Over 270 children attended the seminar that was conducted by Eiji Katsurada Hombu Dojo Shihan. The young aikidoka came from Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Russia, Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands.

After a hiatus of 4 years after the World Combat Games in St. Petersburg, Russia (2013), the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) has renewed its effort to revive many of the multi-sport events such as Mind Games, Beach Games, Urban Games, Artistic Games and Combat Games. The first one to be announced on November 8th 2017 was the Combat Games to be held in Chinese Taipei in the fall of 2019.

Paul De Beer, Founder Member of the Aikido Federation of South Africa (AFSA), was honoured with the merit award of “Administrator of the Year”. It is a prestigious trophy bestowed by the University of Pretoria during TuksSport Colours and Award Gala that took place this week.

The IAF was present at the opening ceremony of the European Week of Sport in Tartu, Estonia. It is the 3rd edition of this already well-known week dedicated to sport and health. The program is an initiative of the European Commission. This year, during the 23rd and the 30th of September, thousands of events across Europe were organized under the spur #BeActive.

Romania hosted an international seminar a few days ago to celebrate 20 years of activity of the Romanian Aikikai Aikido Foundation. The main instructor of this event was Mitsuteru Ueshiba, Hombu Dojo-cho.

The logo represents IAF’s increasing global presence and its role and the traditional value of Aikido as a Japanese Budo. The new logo has taken into account the digital age requirements of logo usage and for the first time involved a professional graphic designer to package it in a way that is ready and easy to use by the member nations. The logo incorporates Aikikai’s requirements which highlights even stronger ties between Aikikai and IAF.

Aikido has been practiced in Colombia for more than a quarter of a century, yet not within a national organized environment. However, the need and the benefits of a unification came in sight more and more. Here is a short history of how the Colombian Federation of Aikido was founded and the joy it brought, written by the President of the Colombian Federation himself (Spanish version below).

One’s beginnings are often full of energy and overwhelming enthusiasm and on rare occasions, those early footsteps can even make history. It is however precisely what happened to the small number of people who built the basis of Aikido in Norway and who recently celebrated their 40 years anniversary. We attended this special seminar and had the pleasure of listening to Bjorn Eirik Olsen, a 7th Dan Shihan talking about how Aikido started to be practiced in his country.

Equality on tatami, leadership and self-confidence were the key points of the Aikido Gender Day that was celebrated in Nederlands, with the participation of practicioners, both women and men, from Switzerland, Slovenia, Germany, Austria, Norway and, of course, The Netherlands.